Run
by Vera-chan
Summary: ‘I don't know how long I've been running. I would just give up if I could but if I do they'll catch me. I know that they're still following… They always are...’ *Dark, Confusing, One-Shot* [J/S]


Vera: .. ^__^;; One-shot I entered for the Project YuGiOh Fanfiction Contest.  
  
Yami Vera: __ It's too weird...  
  
Vera: ^^;; Well, read it and tell me if I should write up a sequel or second part or something..  
  
*******  
  
Warning: Angst.. oddness... some fluff in the end... lotsa Angst.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh  
  
*******  
  
-RUN-  
  
I don't know how long I've been running. All I know is that it's been long enough to cause my leg muscles to scream in protest, my breathing to be altered to sharp gasps for air and my lungs to burn painfully. I would just give up if I could but if I do they'll catch me. I know that they're still following.  
  
They always are.  
  
It's cold, so very cold, outside now. I had a jacket... I think. Yes. I had a jacket. But it caught on a tree branch some time ago, maybe a few days ago, and I did not wait to retrieve it. I can't waste my time on that. But now I'm near freezing and every breath of air burns down my throat right into my lungs, increasing the flaming pain there. The Mistress Moon shines brightly above, only partly clouded by sky. Its ethereal glow taunts me, lights my way yes but also lights an easy track for me to be followed.  
  
Her star maidens are no better, each one a pin prick of white against the inky folds of sky. I wish it had been cloudy tonight. The darkness doesn't bother me, and least not when I need to be hiding. Had the astronomical beings not been so bright I might have been able to hide until they passed.  
  
But not now.  
  
The glow is too bright and my even if I managed to hide my heavy panting would surely give me away. Of course if it wasn't my breathing it would be the rapid pounding of my heart, beating harshly against my rib cage like a drum. It hurts. God does it hurt. But maybe if I hold out, maybe if I keep pushing, and maybe if I pray.... maybe I'll live to see tomorrow.  
  
Perhaps the sun will rise before they can catch up and I will be able to find my way out of this forest. With the rise of the sun comes my freedom. They do not pursue me during the day and instead wait until the dead of night to crawl from the shadows and search for my presence. I wish they would just leave me alone. I don't want to be one of them, and I don't want them to use me like I know they will.  
  
Everyone uses me damnit and they have made it clear if I do not join them that's exactly what they will do. I miss my old life. I miss being above everyone, able to sneer down at them as I pleased. For they were all beneath me then. But something happened.... HE happened. And damn him to hell but it wasn't supposed to!  
  
I wasn't supposed to lighten up on him. I wasn't supposed to become friendly towards him. I wasn't supposed to tell him everything about myself. I wasn't supposed to make love with him. Damnit... I wasn't supposed to love him.  
  
But I did, and I still do, and it's that love that is making me run. It is that love that is forcing me to place one foot before the other in rapid procession for hope that I'll be able to make it back. If I can make it back then things will be okay again, if I can make it home then everything will be alright. They'll stop chasing me and I'll be back with him and my brother.  
  
I miss them. I miss them so much and the thought that, if I don't keep on, I will never see them again brings tears to my eyes. It's been so long since I last cried but now, sure as the moon shines, I'm crying. I don't stop running nor do I slow but I do cry. The crystalline droplets fall in streams from my eyes and I know the normally sapphire color has been darkened to navy. He always told me that happened when I let my emotions choke up on me.  
  
Pain.  
  
Love.  
  
Confusion.  
  
Betrayal.  
  
Fear.  
  
Sadness.  
  
Hope.  
  
Determination.  
  
Hatred.  
  
It all burns inside of me and fuels my tears. But it also fuels my soul and gives me a newfound strength to continue running. If I could just stop and catch my breath- No. I cannot stop. For any reason. Not until they stop following me.  
  
But that won't happen until you're home... a voice whispers in the back of my mind. And I know it's right. And those truthful words continue to replay in my head. They won't stop chasing me until I'm home and I can't stop fighting until they stop chasing me. I have to reach home, it calls out to me and pulls me towards it like a magnet.  
  
I will go many more days without eating and barely sleeping. I can only afford to sleep a small bit turning the sun's brightest hour before I am forced to continue on. I need all of the head starts I can get because, no matter how far I've traveled during the day, I still have to run to keep away from them.  
  
My lean form allows me to pass easily between trees and tight spots, in turn making my trek a touch easier. But he doesn't like the fact I'm so thin. He claims it's unhealthy and before all of... this, I was getting better. He was proud of me and that was... I loved it. As much as I loved him himself. Nobody has been that proud of me since the passing of my mother.  
  
I need him. I must get back to him. And my brother needs me. I can't give up on him. The two most important people in my life are counting on my safe return... or return in the least. My clothes are tattered and torn, crimson staining the white slacks in numerous places. Some of the wounds are from them and some of them are from getting scratched and snagged as I hurry through the forest. My shirt is almost completely useless; almost all of the buttons missing and what had once been fine, black material is now tatters just barely holding together.  
  
I'm going to be sick. I know it. Completely ill by the time I get home. I've been running for so long. Days on end pass by with only vague recognition. I have long since lost what date is may be or what day of the week. Something in the back of my mind tells me it's winter. That or late fall thanks to the lack of snow. But I really am going to be sick.  
  
Not in the head.  
  
Not about to throw up.  
  
Just downright sick.  
  
I know I have a fever and if I don't I know I will get one soon. It's rained on me a few times, three or four times I believe. That combined with the cold weather scream health hazard. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but getting home. If I'm lucky, I'll get there soon. I do not know how far they'd taken me out from home but I do know that once I get out of the forest I'll be safe.  
  
Until then however, I have to run. Let the tears fall as they will and run for as long as my legs will allow and then force them the rest of the way. I cannot afford to stop. Not when I'm so close. I can feel it. I will be home soon. Mokuba will have his brother back, and I will be reunited with my only blood relative remaining.  
  
But I'm also running to him . As soon as I reach him I'm going to tell him how much I love him and have him repeat the same words of affection until I'll never forget the way it rolls off of his tongue. His name pushes past my lips, a hoarse whisper beneath my breath as I push on through undergrowth and plant life. I repeat it a little louder, in a soft speaking voice that, as the whisper was, is hoarse as I trample through the forest. Again the name leaves my tongue, a raised voice that almost cracks. And finally, I scream his name into the freezing air surrounding me, my voice terribly cracked and almost unrecognizable. But even so I scream his name again, cry out for him desperately.  
  
"KATSUYA!!!"  
  
And I continue to run...  
  
---  
  
He's been missing for three weeks now.  
  
Three long weeks have past and nobody's seen head or tail of him. Mokuba and I have been worried sick, literally in Mokuba's case. One night, near the end of last week, while we were eating the poor kid just started sobbing uncontrollably. He sobbed until he could hardly breathe and then ended up running off to the bathroom to throw up.  
  
I stayed up all night with him, the two of us hugging each other while he continued to cry. Luckily the sobs were softer and he eventually fell asleep. But it doesn't matter. No amount of tears is enough to express how badly we miss Seto.  
  
And Mokuba's as worried about him as I am.  
  
I can't even sleep in our room anymore. I sleep on the couch. I tried to sleep in bed after the first twenty-four hours with no sign of him. At first I just couldn't sleep but when I finally fell into slumber. gods I wish I hadn't.  
  
It was like watching what was happening to him for real and I can only pray my imagination just ran away with me. I shot awake in bed that night, stumbled over to the bathroom and emptied everything in my stomach into the toilet. After washing my mouth out I had slumped against the bathroom wall.  
  
I must have looked like hell.  
  
My eyes were wide, I could feel it, and an earlier glance at the mirror proved I was about as pale as he is, or was, before he disappeared. I couldn't stop shaking and I had cried in my sleep, the tears still falling as I sat huddled on the floor of the bathroom.  
  
They had been hurting him. poking at him with various needles and cutting him almost randomly. His clothes were still on. the same outfit I'd seen him in that day before he left for work. Right down to the trench coat. The day he didn't come home. But even the cloths weren't doing much, the material just being ripped and cut with his skin.  
  
He screamed every time they touched him.  
  
He screamed for me to come and save him.  
  
And I didn't.  
  
After that night I couldn't sleep in that room. So I slept downstairs. Anything was better than having to see Seto like that again. strapped to that table and struggling.  
  
I shake my head.  
  
I don't want to think about that dream... actually. I don't want to think about any of them. Every other day or so I have another dream about him. The first week and a half I saw him beat, raped (mind you he was, oddly enough, always redressed), starved, molested, and forced into doing things he'd done on me. The only difference being he'd done those things willingly with me. I was starting to loose my head, gradually becoming more and more convinced that these dreams were actually visions of what was really happening, when they suddenly changed.  
  
In the middle of the second week my dreams suddenly shifted, not to my koi being hurt by. whoever it was hurting him - I never saw them in my dreams - but rather of him.. running.  
  
Always running. It was through a forest and always after sunset. I never dreamed of running during the day, always night. And he would just keep running until I woke up. Even last night.  
  
There's a difference with last night though, the reason that brought me here. Mokuba's at home sleeping, clueless to the rather disturbing dreams I've been having. I mean, no need to freak the kid out any more than he already is. I, however, am not at the mansion.  
  
I am at the edge of Domino Forest and for good reason. I would have come earlier, and almost did, but finally decided that I couldn't risk leaving the house before now. Not only would I have been leaving Mokuba to himself but I would have, more than likely, been jumped by the reporters that hang around the mansion until nightfall. So that's why I waited, but as soon as I was sure Mokuba was sleeping soundly and I was in no danger of crazed reporters, I snatched up my keys and slipped out of the house.  
  
I drove as fast as possible here in the first car I reached that I had a key for. But the car I drove is hardly important. It's fucking freezing out here and I unconsciously pull my jacket tighter around myself.  
  
But Seto doesn't have a jacket. At least not from what I saw. As a matter of fact, it's what I saw in my dreams that pulled me here. I know it's a silly notion and near impossible prospect that my dreams were actually relaying reality to me but. I can't help it.  
  
Last night, while I dreamt of Seto running, I saw a tree I know he didn't even notice the way he continued on. Or maybe did but just didn't stop.  
  
Anyway, the tree had been carved. Two names in a heart to be exact. Our names.. Seto's and mine. It's out rather far in the forest, at least a day's hike as we'd been camping the day we made that. I had to come out here.  
  
If, and just maybe if, he's still running he'll finally be back in my arms tonight.  
  
I would pray but that hasn't gotten me anywhere. A sudden rustling brings me out of my thoughts and I'm now watching the forest, unsteady breaths staggered with anticipation escaping in and out of my mouth. The rustling sounds again, along with footsteps this time.  
  
And then I choke on a sob as the battered and bloodied brunette from my dreams stumbles out into the street. There's no mistaking that lean figure - much too lean now - and those gorgeous, if haunted, blue eyes staring seemingly unseeing at me. There's a silence were we just stare at each other before he sobs as I had and launches himself into my arms with as much strength it seems he could muster.  
  
And I hold him tightly, sobbing into his hair while he sobs into my jacket. His entire form quakes against me, with both the force of his sobs and probably cold. I only allow us to stand there a moment before pulling back enough to take my jacket off and put it on him.  
  
He doesn't say anything and lets me do as I please.  
  
That almost scares me.  
  
After he's wrapped tightly in my jacket I help him over to the car, my mouth running a mile a minute. The words that spill from my lips switching from questions of his previous whereabouts and well being to explaining how worried Mokuba and I were and how much I love him. By the time I get the last words out we're sitting in the car, me on the driver's side and himself in the passenger seat, finally speaking up.  
  
"Say it again.." He demands, voice a harsh whisper and unlike his normal voice. He's watching me with those haunted orbs, tinged with fatigue and mortification but also shinning with. hope?  
  
"I love you, Seto Kaiba." I repeat and his eyes start to gather tears, his hand coming out to take mine. I lace our fingers and squeeze his hand.  
  
"Please. say it again.." He's begging me softly, emotion suddenly pouring into those lovely blue eyes.  
  
Bliss.  
  
Love.  
  
Appreciation.  
  
Trustworthiness.  
  
Security.  
  
Happiness.  
  
Hope.  
  
Resolution.  
  
Adoration.  
  
I bring my other hand up and cup his cheek gently, leaning forward to brush my lips tenderly against his, pouring all those emotions back to him through that soft action. He's acting so... not him. But I understand why and I can easily accept it. I love him after all. So I tell him again. "I love you."  
  
"Aishiteru, Katsuya.." He whispers back, in the same harsh voice but it's lined with such a softness. I don't think I've ever heard it before this moment. Tears and rolling down his cheeks but I know from one look into his eyes their not of pain or fear but happiness and love.  
  
"What happened..?" I finally ask after a long moment of content silence. He shakes his head weakly.  
  
"Iie.. not now." And I leave it at that. I kiss his forehead soothingly before starting the car up and driving off to the hospital, our fingers still laced.  
  
"You don't have to run anymore, love." I murmur at a stoplight.  
  
He smiles.  
  
---  
  
I knew I was right.  
  
I knew that if I could just make it out of the forest and back to Katsuya things would be okay.  
  
And they are.  
  
A few months have passed since everything happened. I still haven't told Mokuba or my koi where I was, who took me or what happened. I just can't. But I know that Katsuya has an idea.  
  
Of what happened at least.  
  
But it's not important. Not to me at least. The press was told I went on a private vacation to get away from work and the police where paid a hefty amount to keep quiet about the search my family made them start to find me.  
  
And I know I'm safe again. Safe now, laying here with Katsuya.  
  
We haven't done anything since I got back. And when I say anything I mean.. "that". I'm not ready right now and he respects that. He told me he would wait forever and a day if he had to and I believe him, know his words are truthful.  
  
I'm content to lay here in his arms forever, nothing able to get to me. He's stroking my hair I'm pretty sure. I'm only half awake at the moment and he's whispering soft nothings to help me drift off. I've had trouble sleeping for a while, nightmares haunting my slumber.  
  
But Katsuya's always there to fight them off.  
  
He's always there to hold me.  
  
Always there to kiss away the tears and tell me I'm safe.  
  
And I trust him more than anything else in the world.  
  
Let society think what they will about my disappearance, only Katsuya and Mokuba will ever know the truth. And that won't be for some time now. I've already decided to sit them down one day and tell them the whole story start to finish.  
  
One day.  
  
Right now I'm still coming to terms with it and they both accept that.  
  
They both understand that I'm just not ready to tell them.  
  
My psychical wounds have healed and only a few scars remain.  
  
Psychical.  
  
Mentally I'm still hurt. I know I am.  
  
But I also know that in time Katsuya and Mokuba will help me through it and, even if I never fully recover, I'll be able to live normally again. Under Katsuya's protective and watchful eye of course. I don't mind though.  
  
I can finally rest.  
  
And he's right.  
  
I don't have to run anymore.  
  
-Owari- 


End file.
